There are a variety of vehicles that may encounter targets that pose a threat. In a military or combat setting, these vehicles may be armed, as may be the case with attack vehicles, or unarmed, as may be the case with reconnaissance vehicles. For example, these vehicles may include ground vehicles, such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, or jeeps. As another example, these vehicles may include aircraft, such as jets and propeller driven airplanes or airborne rotocraft, such as helicopters. As a further example, these vehicles may include watercraft, such as gunboats. These vehicles may be manned, for example, by personnel, such as drivers, pilots, or captains. Alternatively, these vehicles may be unmanned vehicles, such as unmanned ground-based vehicles or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Un-manned vehicles may be controlled by remote operations personnel or may be autonomous, carrying out a mission with little or no human control or intervention.
There are a variety of factors that help determine the actions of a vehicle in response to an encountered target. Examples of these factors include the type or lethality of the target, the lethality of the vehicle against the target, terrain and weather conditions, vehicle speed and altitude, vehicle aspect angles, available vehicle weapon and sensor systems, and target/mission importance. In a manned vehicle or remote operator controlled unmanned vehicle, this determination may be performed through human (e.g., driver or pilot) recognition, sensor recognition (e.g., automatic target recognition (ATR)), or a combination of human recognition and sensor recognition. In an autonomous unmanned vehicle, this determination may be performed solely through sensor recognition. In the case of an attack vehicle, the determined target type and the weapon(s) available to the attack vehicle may also help determine actions of the attack vehicle.